


Terms of Surrender

by likeadeuce



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gansey family problems, Gen, Helen isn't in it but she has the best lines, the canon timeline cannot be reconciled so i did my best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: "Dick Gansey II had let his son know that if he couldn't hack it in a private school, Gansey was cut out of the will.  He'd said it nicely, though, over a plate of fettuccine." - The Raven Boys
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Terms of Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> Canon timeline cannot be reconciled. I did my best.

When Richard Campbell Gansey III was fifteen years and five months old, his father took him out to an excellent dinner at an old and exclusive restaurant and offered him, in Gansey _père_ ‘s own words, a very good deal. Under its terms, Gansey _fils_ would complete grades ten through twelve at an American high school. During such time as he was enrolled, he would retain access to his trust fund and would receive automatic approval for almost all personal expenses up to two thousand dollars per month. The exceptions were: for charitable contributions over two hundred dollars, political contributions larger than ninety nine dollars and ninety nine cents, and travel expenses of any kind. For these, he would need prior approval or be in serious trouble.

Gansey III heard the echoes of past arguments in these terms: _You can’t just give everything away because you don’t want to deal with your responsibilities, Dick_ (his father); _Anyone can look campaign contributions up on the Internet, Dick, and they stay out there forever, which can make things VERY AWKWARD_ (his mother); and, _Iceland, Dick? How did you even fucking get to fucking Iceland? Do you want to give Dad another heart attack?_ (Helen, who hadn’t so much argued as sworn at his voicemail for five minutes straight.)

Further, Gansey was not such an idiot that he failed to recognize the profound generosity of what his parents were providing, and that all he was being asked to do was the extremely conventional teenage activity of going to school. Still. He had been used to quite a bit more freedom, and a much looser definition of what constituted getting an education, so he had to ask. “I’m not exactly sure. How is this a deal? If I’m making all the concessions and I don’t so much get -- anything --”

Gansey wisely trailed off, giving his father space to gesture with a fork wrapped in fettuccine. “You get the honor of continuing to be my only son and heir.”

“That seems harsh,” Gansey answered in the family deadpan. He was very good at the family deadpan. “I don’t think you ought to cut Helen out of the will, just because I fucked up.”

“Language, Dick,” warned his father, then amended. “‘My only son and co-heir. Obviously.”

“That’s better. You have to admit the draft verbiage was ambiguous. Lack of precision can lead to some real headaches with oral contracts.” Gansey could do this all night when he was in a mood to be stubborn: the child’s game of repeating everything a grownup said, except he had a lifetime of Gansey II’s extremely practical advice to draw on.

“This isn’t a contract. This is your mother and I telling you that the extraordinary freedom you’ve enjoyed comes with certain responsibilities. Your behavior over the past year has not demonstrated maturity commensurate with that freedom.”

Gansey focused on taking a bundle of mint leaves from his pocket, unwrapping them, and sticking a couple in his mouth. Anything but eye contact. Because he’d been home in the States for a month and hadn’t come up with a better answer than “I woke up with a very strong feeling that it had to be Iceland, and I was afraid that if I tried to explain it to anyone, I’d lose that certainty.” Gansey’s family loved him and they understood so many things about him that having this part he couldn’t articulate always felt like lying.

Gansey hated being treated like a child --- even in the very boring, literal sense, that he somehow still was one -- and the only thing worse was the sneaking suspicion that he deserved it.

“Dick,” his father was saying now. “Look at me.” Gansey finally raised his eyes to see that Dad’s expression had softened. “There's another thing your mother and I have been discussing. You might not be able to see this now, but -- it might not be so terrible, for you. It certainly would not be the worst thing in the world if you took some time and just let yourself be a kid.”

“I’m not. . .” Gansey said, but stopped, because he didn’t even know what he was _not_ anymore. And then, just because he’d looked it up on the Internet when he was in a particularly self-pitying mood, he said, not for the first time, “In Virginia, I can apply to be an emancipated minor when I turn sixteen.”

“Oh yes, goodness try that. You might enjoy being emancipated from your trust fund as well.” This was not the first time that Gansey II had made this not-exactly-joke. Gansey III had to admit that any argument that descended into dad jokes hadn’t ever been one he was going to win.

And so, Richard Gansey III, international explorer of some renown, decided to bite the bullet and become a tenth grader.

He would, he decided then and there, make the best of it.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote from book one in the summary struck me as out of sync with what Gansey says elsewhere about his family, and then in book three we learn, "Before he came to Aglionby, he was an unstable international runaway" so that brought some things into focus. . .
> 
> I think they'd go to [The Inn at Little Washington](https://theinnatlittlewashington.com/) for what that's worth. The Ganseys had the reservation for months and it was supposed to be a romantic thing but Dick Two decided it was time to lay down the law for the disaster child.


End file.
